I swapped to a Mac only just last month after 9 or so years of using Windows PCs.Sadly I was kind of forced into making the decision to buy, or order parts for my old PC even though I was not even really sure what exactly was causing the problems. And I say forced because my PC happened to break down around Thanksgiving and I still had about two weeks of online class before that term was over. So it was either buy one then and get back online to my classes, or wait and be offline a few more days before the PC parts came.

So I am still learning about the Mac but I am slowly getting more comfy with it. There are only a few things I would prefer which I can bring up in later topics.

For now, I'd like to ask if there is a word doc app or program equal to MS word, but for Macs? I was using MS Word up until my PC crashed, and I need something for typing out text, and saving templates, etc for classwork. Ive been using Google Docs but IMO its a little annoying to have to go into my mail, before I can open up the docs, then get to the file I want. Plus it has limited word process features. Thanks in advance.

Welcome! There is Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac which is pretty good. It is not identical to the PC version though and there is a, smallish, learning curve. Pages is available from Apple. It's a nice looking application but my, personal, opinion is that it is not as good as Word - although for basic typing it is perfectly find. Finally, before you spend any money (!), I'd recommend looking at OpenOffice.org. It is a free Office application that you can download and is just about as good as Office.

Ah yes I do know about OpenOffice. I used it briefly last year while i was waiting for my upgrade of MS Office suite to come, but I didn't use it long enough to become really familiar with it. I think I'll go ahead and get that and see if it can do everything i need. Saving money is always nice

Your Mac already has TextEdit on board, a basic word processor (though it can do more than most people suspect) that can open and save files in Word format without much issue (not all of the higher-end features of Word are available of course, but your basic Word document opens fine, and you can save to Word format just fine). You may not really need anything more than that.

As has already been pointed out, there's Microsoft Office itself. Word actually started out life as a Mac program, you know -- it's been available for Mac longer than for Windows.

LibreOffice et al are free and generally compatible -- but IMHO that's their sole selling point. I have an extreme aversion to ugly apps.

There's also Pages ($15 at the Mac App Store) that I consider to be a super-charged, mega-user-friendly version of 95% of what Word does, and a much better layout program on top of it all. Well worth the money IMO.

There's also Pages ($15 at the Mac App Store) that I consider to be a super-charged, mega-user-friendly version of 95% of what Word does, and a much better layout program on top of it all. Well worth the money IMO.

Except that Pages is $19.99 at the Mac App Store. Are you getting a discount for being such a loyal Apple supporter?

Seriously though, I have found iWork 09 to work flawlessly for me. My friends and associates that are utilizing Microsoft Word have no problems reading my docs. Plus integration into iCloud is wonderful!

THanks for all the great suggestions. I want to read about all of them before I make a final decision, and in the mean time use the Text Edit that came with the Mac. But i had a question about LibreOffice. Can it support foreign language letters? Eventually I want to try to find a Mac keyboard that can format Turkish letter characters. I know MS Office could do that but right now i can't invest more money into software. (spent enough on the Mac itself and Adobe Creative suite)

All Mac programs can support Turkish characters. You can turn on Turkish keyboard support in system preferences under Language and Text. Once you've done so, a little "flag" will appear in the menu bar to let you "switch back and forth" between Turkish and English (or whatever) kb layouts. With a little practice you'll quickly be able to type in either language very easily.

There's also Pages ($15 at the Mac App Store) that I consider to be a super-charged, mega-user-friendly version of 95% of what Word does, and a much better layout program on top of it all. Well worth the money IMO.

To be honest, the only thing I prefer about Word is it's citation engine.